Capitalism & Racism

According to Malcolm X, “You can’t have capitalism, without racism.” In my opinion, capitalism was designed and is currently use to keep certain races in control and unable to gain wealth. Capitalism is the unfairness of social inequality; it can’t function if everyone is equal, there must always be a class to control. According to Lance Selfa, “When we think of slavery today, we think of it primarily from the point of view of its relationship to racism. But planters in the 17th and 18th centuries looked at it primarily as a means to produce profits for them”. During the early 17th century, capitalism provided the ideological scheme in which slaveholders could brutalize their slaves into profit. But the trade itself quickly became the source of unheard of profits”.

In addition to the article “Moving Forward”, “African slave trade to the Americas initially developed to meet these labor needs”. Slave trades and investments: Slaves were sold based on how much hidden profit they could assemble, and paid more for the healthiest men and women. During that time, slavery made an impact on the growth of the economy and reading show how the race had raised the nation’s capitalism. Selfa also remarks that slave labor was largely for private business operation. The labor force was used to produce a large amount of tobacco, sugar, cotton, and other crops that sold back to England.